Aspic of the Universe
by Penn Flinn
Summary: The fallout from Zoom's identity reveal sends a shockwave through the team, leaving in its wake remnants of fear, terror, and crushing sadness. On top of it all, Barry hears the whispers of V9. He has tasted true speed-and now it is calling him back. (Sequel to my one-shot "Aspic of the World," in which Trajectory injects Barry with the V9 instead of herself.)
1. Chapter 1

**Long time no see! Things have been a little crazy on my end-exams, graduations, moving out-but I can't wait to share this fic with you.**

 **Actually, I'm pretty nervous. But it's good to have a fic to post again.**

 **This is a direct follow-up to my one-shot "Aspic of the World," so I highly recommend reading that one first to get a sense of what's going on (nothing like self-promotion, huh?). This fic picks up immediately after the episode "Trajectory," keeping in mind the alterations from the one-shot.**

 **Disclaimer: This is going to get a little darker than my usual fics. Explicit references to drug use/drug addiction and a bit of dark!Barry, so if that's not your cup of tea, maybe this isn't the fic for you. It's going to be a wild ride for all of us-I've been trying out a new style, and I'm hoping it comes through.**

 **Anyway, enough of the rambling. Enjoy!**

* * *

Barry's throat was raw by the time he made it back to the cortex. From screaming, from a thirst he couldn't pinpoint—either were valid.

"No comms, huh?" Cisco said. Dead was the attempted lightness in his voice. His hand stretched to deposit Barry's abandoned earpieces on the table.

Barry dodged the half-quip, half-accusation, moving past the recently-smashed glass case and Jay's— _Zoom's_ —helmet on the floor. "Where's Caitlin?"

"She said she had to take care of some things." Cisco's jaw tightened. "Don't worry, I think she's fine—I mean, as fine as any of us could be after learning our presumed-dead-former-romantic-partner is actually an evil lunatic—I just mean that I don't think she's quite at the murdery supervillainess level."

He was scared, that much was obvious, though that was hardly unreasonable given what they'd all just learned about Jay. _Zoom_. His jumble of words tripped over themselves, and he remained open-mouthed, hands fidgeting in front of him.

"What now?" Barry asked.

At a loss, Cisco shrugged. "I don't know what more there is to do today. Plus, you should get some serious rest before we even think about moving forward. The V9 Eliza hit you with…that's no joke. I thought we were gonna lose you, dude."

Come to think of it, it wasn't just Barry's throat that burned, but his whole body, in a way it hadn't in a long time. Like he'd torn every muscle in a workout and was now feeling the acid seep through to heal them. To make him stronger, hopefully. Pain first. Then strength.

A thought, a remembrance, sparked to life. "I know what we still have to do."

He was gone before he could hear Cisco's reply.

By the time Barry had made it to the overpass, the pipeline, and back to the cortex, Cisco had barely moved. He blinked at Barry once and crossed his arms.

"Seriously, dude. Comms. Use them. You know we don't like it when you run off without any way to talk to you."

In response, Barry tore off his mask and ran a hand through sweat-slicked hair.

"So, um…where did you run off to?"

Finally Barry allowed himself a tiny smile. He nodded at the bank of computers, where one monitor now clearly showed Trajectory— _Eliza_ —pressed up against the glass of her new pipeline cell.

"Wasn't too hard to find her," Barry explained. "She was running empty on V9 anyway. Hadn't moved much. At least we could do something useful."

"She's not a threat anymore, is she?" Cisco said. "I mean, not without the V9. That's what was making her evil, right?"

"Mm. Evil." Barry nodded but kept his eyes fixed on the screen. Eliza was flush against the glass as he had been when she'd locked him up, and the image was grainy, but he was certain. Certain she was trembling. Certain she was shaking herself to pieces.

No, he couldn't see it. But he knew. Firsthand.

* * *

A few hours later, Barry stood at the entrance to the pipeline, alone. Iris and Joe had headed home to rest, Wells had cited the need to track Jesse, and Cisco and Caitlin had gone their separate ways to pretend to sleep while they wallowed in their own forms of shock.

Barry brushed sweat from his forehead, even though he'd been sitting in the cortex doing nothing for the better part of an hour. A deep breath filled his lungs, but didn't quite give him the oxygen he needed. Bracing himself once more, he opened the doors and stepped into the pipeline.

"Eliza," he said, moving forward toward the lone figure in the cell. "Long time, no see. You comfortable in there?"

"Please, let me out." Eliza was curled up into a ball now, shaking harder than when Barry had brought her in, somehow more human than she had been as well. Under no pretenses now, she'd taken off her mask and unlaced her hair from its tight braids. In her Trajectory costume, she looked out of place, fake almost.

'I need to know what you felt," Barry said. "When you were on the V9. I need to know what you were feeling."

"Want to diagnose me?" Eliza said. "Want to prove I'm crazy? Really, I'm impressed you're still standing here after what I dosed you with."

"Tell me," Barry growled.

"I thought it might kill you," Eliza confessed. "So much…and your first time, no less…"

Barry sped forward, slammed his fist into the glass. "Tell me."

Eliza shrunk with a cry, suddenly tiny in her cell, gripping her head like it would burst. Barry was glad for his mask, glad she couldn't see his full expression—though his eyes were likely enough.

"It felt frightening," Eliza whispered. "And exhilarating. And impossible…impossible to forget."

"And after?"

"Like I've had the best, and worst, parts of myself ripped away." Eliza seemed shrunken, hollowed, sitting there in the cell.

Barry tried to keep his expression neutral. "So what does that leave? What do you have left after the V9 is gone?"

Her eyes met his. "Nothing. Absolutely nothing."

* * *

"She's unstable." Barry sidled around the table to Caitlin. "I mean, look at her. She's been hooked on V9 so long, it's killing her."

"She needs her fix," Caitlin said, "Nothing more. This is what happens when you go cold turkey." She looked hurriedly up at Barry and Cisco. "Not that I know from experience."

"This isn't a normal drug, though," Barry insisted. "She's going crazy. She's in pain. Are we just going to ignore that?"

Caitlin lingered on his face a moment longer, then reluctantly turned back to the computer monitor. On screen, Eliza lay curled in a fetal position in the corner of her cell. She'd been alternating between talking to herself and moaning for the past hour, and she had refused food when Cisco had brought it down to her.

"What are you suggesting?" Caitlin said. "That we give her more?"

Barry tried to make his shrug nonchalant. "I'm just saying, as a guy who's been dosed with this stuff, it's no joke. I'm worried about the shock of losing it all at once." A flare of fire in his skull. "Maybe she doesn't have to do this cold turkey. We could wean her off gradually."

Caitlin looked dubiously up at Cisco, who raised his eyebrows noncommittally. Barry curled his fingers around the edge of the table.

"I suppose we could make a few more batches of V9," Caitlin said slowly. "All we would need to do is dilute it. She wouldn't have anywhere to run, of course, not in that pipeline cell—"

"I think just having the feeling is enough," Barry said. " _Would_ be enough," he amended quickly.

He didn't miss the second, fleeting exchange between Caitlin and Cisco, and he actively cooled down the white-hot emotion that leapt to his throat.

"It's not a…terrible idea," Cisco said. "We'll get to work right away."

 _Thanks for your overwhelming faith_ , Barry might have quipped in a normal situation, but he didn't want to test the two of them anymore. He put on a cheerful disposition as both went off to the lab, promising them a special delivery of Big Belly Burger later that afternoon for all their hard work.

Then, when they disappeared through the doorway, his smile faded, and he tried to pretend like the leaping joy in his stomach was nothing more than stagnated heroism.

* * *

A few hours later, a few hours after the cold mixture of hope and joy began gnawing at the insides of Barry's stomach, Caitlin and Cisco returned with a tray holding three vials.

Three vials. Three sparkling, blood-red, promising vials. Barry looked at them with equal parts revulsion and anticipation, measuring each vial up with his eyes before tearing his gaze upward.

"I think I'm the one who should do the administering," Caitlin said, "seeing as somehow I've become our resident physician." She looked up affectionately at Barry, who rolled his eyes.

"Not my fault I've gotten myself into a dangerous profession. As I recall, it was you all who caused me to be struck by lightning."

"Oh, stop." Caitlin fiddled with her equipment, then unstoppered one of the vials.

 _Pop_.

Whatever levity he had felt was sucked away with the sound of the stopper being removed. He crossed his arms over his chest, as if that might contain the heartbeat he was sure the two of them could hear, and watched as Caitlin drew some of the solution into a syringe.

"We're sure this will work?" Cisco said, the dubiousness returning to his face. "I mean, you don't think she's going to go all whack on us in that cell once she has this in her?"

"What's in this syringe is pretty diluted," Caitlin said, "and a small dose. It should alleviate the symptoms of withdrawal without producing the full hallucinatory experience. Still dangerous, of course, but a few more doses of decreasing concentration—"

"Doses?"

Startled, Caitlin nearly lost the syringe, and Barry's head jerked upward. Standing in the doorway to the cortex was Wells, a baseball cap drawn low over his eyes and a jacket zippered up to his chin.

"Any luck looking for Jesse?" Barry said instinctively, but Wells brushed off the attempt at distraction.

He looked each one of them in turn. "I hope you're not thinking about giving Eliza any more of that V9 in the hopes that it will ease her withdrawal."

"Um." Cisco shifted uncomfortably. He'd never been a very good liar.

"And who came up with this delightfully asinine idea?"

"Hey, watch it," Barry said. "You haven't seen how Eliza is suffering. She needs help."

"I agree, she does," Wells said, narrowing his focus on Barry. "I should have guessed this was your idea, Mr. Allen."

Barry bristled. "What are you implying?"

"Nothing whatsoever." Wells shrugged up his backpack and nodded at Caitlin and Cisco. "You two. I would've thought you would have more sense than to entertain these ideas."

"Hey, I don't see you offering up anything else helpful," Cisco snapped.

"I am offering up the sensible option to leave her be," Wells said. "I've seen Eliza. And I saw Barry. And that is how I know that you should not touch this. You know as well as I that V9 is dangerous. Too dangerous to keep manufacturing at will in this lab."

"This is the last we'll make," Caitlin said firmly. "And I would appreciate it if you didn't question my medical judgments."

"It's not your judgment I'm worried about." But Caitlin was already on her way to the stairs with the syringe. Cisco trailed close behind, seemingly determined to help in whatever way he could, even if it was just to show solidarity. They were quite the pair, Barry mused. Loyal, always loyal, ready to accept him and his outlandish ideas—almost to a fault.

Once they were out of the room, Barry's gaze was drawn back to Wells. The other man anticipated his accusation and jumped in before he could speak.

"You know what _my problem_ is, Mr. Allen," he said gruffly. "Don't think you're fooling anyone."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"V9 is dangerous. You of all people should know that."

"I _do_."

"Then don't forget it." Wells tightened a strap of his pack sharply. "Tread carefully. And remember what we talked about—you're better than this."

He stormed out without another word, and Barry was left to stand, too uneasy to fume.

In the empty cortex, he listened to the faint buzzing of the lights, the slight whirr of the computers, sounds so perfunctory they were usually lost. If he closed his eyes, he could almost imagine himself becoming one of them, becoming part of this very space itself instead of merely occupying it. For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of that artificial darkness, standing so still that even his breathing halted.

Two minutes he waited there, listening for the sounds of life. Then, with a speed that rustled the papers on the desktop, he unstoppered a vial and skimmed some of the red liquid into a fresh syringe.

* * *

 **Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment. I always love hearing from you guys and chatting about this show.**

 **I'll be following my normal posting schedule for this one, even though it's a shorter multi-chapter, so expect updates Wednesdays and Sundays! See you then.**

 **Till next time,**

 **Penn**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thanks for the awesome response to the first chapter and for the interest in this story! I generally like to individually respond to reviews on first and last chapters, but for some reason is not letting me see reviews on the site itself or respond to them-so, to all of you, here is a sweeping thank you!**

 **After last night's episode I feel absolutely terrible about what I am doing to Barry in this story, but, alas, here we are. See you in hell, I guess.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

The triumphant slam of papers against the desk jolted Barry badly, but Cisco didn't seem to take notice.

"It's working," the scientist said. "I can't believe it. It's actually working."

Caitlin, however, noticed the way Barry had practically leapt out of his seat. "You feeling okay, Barry? You look a little tense."

"I'm fine," Barry said. In truth, he'd been so lost in his own thoughts he'd barely registered them coming into the cortex. "It's working, you said? Eliza's getting better?"

"She's showing progress, yes." Caitlin sat down in one of the swivel chairs and pulled her long hair back into a ponytail. "There's one vial left—I think two or three more doses will use it up, and by then I'll feel more comfortable about letting her off the hook. I'm going to stay here a while longer and monitor her, plus work on diluting the next samples." She nodded at Barry. "You should go home. You look exhausted."

"Compliments are sparse here, I see." Barry flicked the pencil he'd been toying with for the past hour in her direction.

"Don't act like you haven't been all lethargic the past two days," Cisco butted in. "Listen, I think the only way you're going to work that V9 out of your system completely is by resting."

"It's out of my system," Barry said. "Remember, blood transfusion?"

"How could I forget?" Cisco grumbled. He had an expressed fear of needles, which was why it had surprised Barry to wake up two days earlier with Cisco by his bedside, hooked up to the transfusion apparatus by a needle in the crook of his arm.

"Even so, it took a lot out of you," Caitlin said. "Go home, Barry. We'll take care of things here."

"Yeah, no offense, but you look comically undernourished and underslept," Cisco said. "Zoom's identity is weighing hard on all of us, not to mention the fact that you were literally forcibly drugged. Take the night off."

Barry chewed on his lip, then stood. "Fine," he said. "I think I'm going to go for a run."

Caitlin's mouth twitched downward. Barry could practically see her resisting the urge to look at Cisco again. "Anything on your mind?"

"Like you said: a lot." He shrugged his bag over his shoulder.

"Okay, but don't push too hard." Caitlin's words were lost; he was already out the door.

The first thing he did was change into his suit and ditch his bag near one of the less-used doors to the building. He was under no pretenses of going home anytime soon. Once he was suited up, he produced the hidden syringe, the one with a skimmed dose of V9, from his bag. He kept it tight in his fist as he ran. By the time he had made it to his destination, an empty field where he'd mistakenly ended up the first time the V9 had been in his system, the syringe was slick in his palm.

Scorch marks from his high-velocity stop two days before still burned black amidst the greenery. They were a glaring reminder of the fear, physical manifestations of the darkness that had torn through his being. Fear, anger, pain.

But also joy. And that, that was why he was here.

He'd rehearsed the moment many times in his head, following the action itself and then all of its possible reactions, but as he put the needle to his arm he was still enveloped by a consuming disgust.

 _Just do it,_ came a tiny, ghostlike voice in the back of his head. His voice, but colder. _This will help you_.

He'd rehearsed it so, so many times, but the sting of the metal and the rush of warm fluid into his bloodstream was more thrillingly horrifying than he'd ever imagined.

The syringe fell to the grass and he, too, toppled to his knees, crumpling under the pressure of every muscle sizing at once. This was a smaller dose than Eliza had attacked him with, but the symptoms somehow felt heightened, like finally getting a drink after days of thirst. First came that terror—he recognized the terror—of the sensation of being torn apart from the inside. Then the regret— _why, why, why did you do this to yourself—_

But that was his own voice, this time locked away, and the ghostly voice, now exceptionally solid, answered:

 _Because we're better._

He _was_ better, and he knew it in the way he took control of the swirling sensations clouding him. Or perhaps not control, but a deep, deep understanding. He felt each sensation so acutely, and in doing so he understood each function, each rush of lightning, each piece of a once-unreachable universe that gave him speed.

And that: that was the joy.

He sped off, not necessarily in control of his body but understanding it, and listening to each of its becks and calls. He simply _ran_ , and reveled in the feeling of _running_ , and knew, for the second time in two days, that he was better, faster than Zoom. This was it: this was what being _the fastest man alive_ meant. This was what it meant to push himself. This was what it meant to have the power to save his friends.

The power to protect them, and what was more, the power to make everything right again. Time, space, had no meaning when he tapped into this force. Eddie, Ronnie, his mom—their deaths didn't matter, because he could run back the clock and bring them back. Speed was at his command, time at his command, and he could _do_ anything, _be_ anything—

He let out a crazed whoop of joy as he tore across an ocean, any ocean. The lightning zinged within him, and salt and sea breeze brushed his face, and everything else but freedom melted away.

He wasn't sure when he'd last felt so happy.

He'd made it to an indeterminate stretch of land—what state or what country didn't matter, artificial borders didn't matter—when something not quite solid filtered through one of his ears.

"—arry? You there?"

Had he been in his right mind, it might have concerned him how long it took to put the voice to a name.

"Cisco." He slowed, gliding to a halt in the barren land but still throwing up sparks and flashes of lightning. He looked down. Some of the sand around his feet had turned to glass.

"Bro, where are you? I don't think the GPS is working."

"On a run, like I said." Also, under normal circumstances, he might have flinched at the sharpness in his voice.

"Sorry to bother you, I know we told you to go home—"

"—we wouldn't ask under normal circumstances, you really do need your rest—" That was Caitlin. Now that Barry was somewhat more grounded, the name came easier.

"What is it?"

"Two metas," Cisco continued apologetically. "One of them can create sonic booms. The other seems to be able to melt things just by touching them. They're working together, it looks like. They're wreaking havoc downtown. Things aren't looking good."

"You want me to stop them."

"That's…kind of your specialty." Cisco paused. "I think you can stop this sonic boom guy with a sonic boom of your own. Think you can go that fast?"

Barry reached for his earpiece. "I'll do it."

Both Cisco and Caitlin's voices burst through with more apologies, but he was no longer listening. He wrapped his fingers around the earpiece, tugged it from his ear, and clenched it in his fist. The pent-up annoyance sparked within him and manifested itself in deadly lightning that collected in his palm. In seconds, the earpiece was inundated with lightning and erupted from the inside out. The blackened, useless piece of metal dropped to the sand, but he was forty miles away before it touched the ground.

Downtown Central City reared up before him in two blinks. He slowed just enough to see the two metahumans. Sure enough, one was in the process of melting a building from the ground floor, while the other sped progress with visible sonic booms. Metal screeched, the building on the verge of toppling, a massive Jenga tower with a bottom piece removed.

 _Think you can go that fas_ t? Cisco had asked. Barry, both the slow one shunted back and the ghostly one who had taken residence, might have scoffed. He was faster. Faster than anything. The sonic boom he created upon entry to the city was more than a sonic boom; it was sheer power, sheer destruction. Windows in a mile radius shattered. The meta who had created his own pitiful imitations flew backward and lay still.

Time slowed. The building, approaching a sixty-degree angle to the ground, appeared to freeze in midair. Barry began running again.

One sweep of the building revealed 352 terrified people. He started on the top floor.

Thirty-three seconds later, 352 terrified found themselves crammed together in a park one mile away, watching the building they had just occupied fall from a distance.

With the last civilian deposited, Barry circled back. The building was now at fifty-degrees, total collapse imminent. The metal-bending man stood like a statue, hands raised. Barry knocked him out with a single punch. The force of it sent the man backward, directly into the path of the fallen building.

In Barry's eyes, the building fell faster. He realized at once, with a kind of swooping in his gut, that the drug was wearing off. He looked coldly at the unconscious man in the path of the building, heard the shrieking of metal, and burst with a desperate sort of rush. He went to the sonic boom meta instead.

With the meta in his arms, he zipped away from the scene. If he listened hard enough, he could almost hear the thunder of the building as it sunk into the pavement.

* * *

 **Remember when I said Barry was going to go a little dark? Well, this is just the start, kiddos. Buckle up.**

 **Thanks for reading, and please consider leaving a comment on your way out!**

 **Till next time,**

 **Penn**


	3. Chapter 3

**Glad you all are open to this darker Barry! Placing this story at this point of the show was delilberate, because I think in the wake of everything Zoom has done, the realization that Zoom is this man that Barry knows and trusts is the tipping point. Zoom is not a monster, but a man who is fallible (and terrible!) and that first hit of V9 really showed Barry that there _was_ a power within his grasp to make him good enough to save the people he loves and transcend the "weak" part of him that was unable to stand up against that man.**

 **That was a lot longer than I intended! All of that just to say thanks for the open mind, and it's going to keep getting worse! Buckle up!**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Halfway back to STAR, Barry paused for breath. It was hard to tell, now, how long the break was—one minute, or two seconds?—but it was just enough for him to feel the gap where pure power had been just minutes before. Dread of loss, so thick it momentarily choked him, welled up in its place. He hefted the unconscious meta over his shoulder and sped the rest of the way to the lab.

His arrival was so swift that Caitlin and Cisco both shrieked. However, he took no heed, depositing the meta roughly on the floor.

"Here's Sonic Boom," he said dully. His heart still raced, but, thankfully, the lightning along his arms had faded. Traces of panic laced his thoughts; could they tell that the drug was still in his system?

Caitlin frowned, but her concern, thankfully, was directed at the meta on the floor. "He looks pretty roughed up," she said. "What did you do to him?"

Barry shrugged. "Super sonic punch."

"His ears are bleeding," Caitlin said. She kneeled down next to him, checked his pulse, furrowed her brow.

"What about the other one?" Cisco said. "The metal-melty one?"

The sounds of the building collapsing rang in Barry's ears. "I don't think he made it. The building fell on top of him."

Cisco flinched. Caitlin looked up. "You couldn't get him out of the way?"

Again, a shrug. "I can't save everyone." It was something the slower Barry would say. It felt rehearsed.

At the computer bank, Cisco tapped a few times. "Jeez, Barry…reports are coming in now that almost 400 people were rescued from that building. That was all you?"

Barry nodded.

"Wow." Cisco rubbed at his brow, eyes fixed on the computer screen, dumbfounded. "You feeling alright? You were going a lot faster than usual."

"Fine. Just a little winded." It was true. The weightlessness he had felt before was crashing down, and the buzzing in his bones that had once comforted him now made him feel unstable. The extreme output of energy from rescuing the people from the building had burned away most of the drug, he knew, and he felt short of breath from either panic or exertion.

"That's probably normal," Caitlin said, rising and moving toward him. "Like Cisco said, you were going exceptionally fast, even for you."

"Could it be a side effect of…?" Cisco swallowed his own words, cautious.

"A side effect of the V9 a few days ago?" Caitlin said coolly. "Could be. There could still be traces, like we said. It should wear off soon." She reached up and placed the back of her hand on Barry's forehead. Electricity popped, and she drew back her hand at the shock.

"I'll take this guy downstairs." Barry pulled away from her before she could comment and took deliberately slow steps toward the fallen meta. "You two should get home. It's been a long day."

Down the hallway he could feel every footfall, each one rattling up through him, radiating a dull ache that originated somewhere in his legs. Everything was falling back into solidity, and it _hurt_.

He dropped the meta in a pipeline cell and closed it. The door shut with a squeal and a hiss. Grating.

On his way out, he passed Eliza's cell. They made eye contact, and she blinked at him. An empty syringe lay at her side.

A rush of anger, then of shame, then of need. He broke eye contact and broke away.

He was too fast for Cisco and Caitlin to see him in the cortex again, skimming more V9 from the last vial into a new syringe. Even if they did notice the missing amount, they would never catch him. That was the beauty of it.

And, again, with burning in his veins, he was running.

* * *

" _Just so we're clear, after I kill you, I'm going to kill them. And then I'm going to kill your father. I always win, Flash."_

 _"You like to fish with bait. I do too."_

 _"Goodbye, Flash. You, too, weren't fast enough."_

 _Linda, Joe, Iris, Cisco, Caitlin, Eddie, Ronnie. They all lay around him with holes in their chests, holes made by vibrating fists, more devastating than knives or guns. The bodies were the only things that remained in a crumbling city. Central City, brought to ashes. The debris choked Barry, congealed in his own chest._

 _Zoom, demon-like, stood opposite Barry across the sea of bodies. If he didn't have the mask on, the monster might have been grinning. Perhaps there was a grin beneath the mask, on Jay's face._

 _"You did this," Barry choked. "You killed them."_

 _Zoom laughed. "You—you were never fast enough, were you?"_

 _Barry sank to his knees, his throat dry in the fiery world he had tried so hard to protect, eyes burning as he stared at the bloody, fist-shaped holes._

 _When he looked down at his hands, they were the ones that were vibrating._

He awoke shaking so violently that he rattled the couch. He shot upright and panicked, feeling inexplicably constricted, before realizing that he'd gotten tangled up in a blanket. When he'd passed out on the couch near one in the morning, he hadn't even thought about a blanket, but Joe must have found him lying there and provided him one. There was also a large glass of water and several stacks of pancakes sitting on the coffee table, another signature Joe move when Barry would pass out haphazardly on the couch after a night of crimefighting. Usually he was eager to accept the offering, but this morning he looked at it and felt sick.

The blanket was damp with sweat, along with the suit—Barry hadn't even bothered to take it off, which might have been disastrous had Wally chosen that morning to visit. The shivers that wracked his body certainly weren't from cold, for a feverish kind of heat crawled up his back, up his throat.

Above all, the dream clawed into him. His mind was in a singular place, ringing alarm bells, blinding him with terror.

 _You can save them_. The voice in the back of his head had grown louder with each dose of V9, and now he could practically visualize it in front of him. The fast Barry. The better Barry. The cold, calculating, monstrous Barry. _You know now how to save them._

He tugged the sticky mask over his head and ran out the door so fast it busted its hinges.

The anxiety only built as he sprinted to the lab, and by the time he flew into the cortex it had manifested itself as a piercing ringing in his ears, so shrill it was actually painful. The cortex was empty, though it looked as if Caitlin or Cisco had been there recently, judging by the not-quite-warm computers and the bag slung over the back of one of the chairs. Better that they weren't there. Barry went instantly to the rack where the V9 tubes had been stored. When he saw that all of the vials were now empty, his heart plummeted to his stomach.

"No, no, no, no…" he muttered to himself, inspecting each one in turn for any miraculous drop of the red liquid, his distress growing with each failure. "Please…"

He was dying; he was sure of it. His muscles were on fire, his body ripping itself to pieces with shivers, sweat making his eyes burn. His stomach curled with nausea.

Then: rage.

He was down to the pipeline in an instant. Caitlin and Cisco were absent from there as well, but the signs of their recent visit were also present. In Eliza's cell, deposited along with an early lunch, was a syringe with the last bit of V9.

Eliza saw him at the other end of the hallway, glanced at the syringe, and went for it.

Barry got there first.

Even with the time it took to open the cell, the speed was incomparable. He was inside the cell and wrenching the syringe from her hand, driving it into his skin, before she could make a move. The familiar warmth rushed through him, immediately dispelling the anxiety and the shuddering, leaving only that fire in its place.

"You're sick," Eliza said, and in the initial haze of the drug, he couldn't tell whether it was a concerned or an fighting comment. Instead of responding, he dropped the syringe and sank against the back wall. He waited for the bliss, the power, to sink in, but Eliza's presence kept the rage simmering.

"I'm serious," she said.

"You're one to talk," he snapped. "You're the one who's been taking these doses religiously since you got here."

"You're _sick_ ," Eliza said, and this time it was definitively a spit. "I'm getting out of here."

Right. The door to the cell was still open. She stepped over the threshold, and Barry tackled her back to the ground.

"We've locked you here for a reason," he said. "You're dangerous."

"You're the one who's dangerous," Eliza said, squirming beneath him. "You think I don't know the signs of V9 addiction when I see them? Look at you. That was the last of it, I gather. Where are you going to get your next fix? Think stealing that last one from me is going to be the end of it?"

Though that thought had been lurking, untouched, in the back of his mind, it surfaced with full intensity now, and the weight of it seared behind his eyes. For an instant he was Barry Allen once more, and the thought of being trapped, of enduring the anxiety and the nausea and the powerlessness, overwhelmed him.

"Why did you do this to me?" he said in a strangled voice. " _Why_?"

"You deserved it."

"I _didn't_." This was punctuated by a shake to her shoulders. "I was trying to help you."

"Look at how desperate you are," Eliza wheezed. "You're not the hero everyone thinks you are."

A monster was cracking through the surface, and for a moment all Barry could see was the images from his dream, a spiral that he could never escape from. "You did this to me."

Hurt, fury, and desperation welled up inside him and burst out of his skin. He gripped Eliza by the shirt and dragged her away. Her weight meant nothing to him, because he was weightless again, and stronger than her, stronger than the V9. He had to be stronger than the V9. He refused to believe that it was the other way around.

Still, she gripped his hand, pried at his fingers, and it was something of a nuisance. On one of the downtown streets he finally let her go, flinging her outward and watching as she tumbled down the asphalt. A taxi screeched around her, and civilians on the sidewalks gasped accordingly. But they didn't matter. They didn't exist.

Only Eliza, now bleeding down one side of her face, the sleeve of her jacket smoldering.

"You know how to cure this, surely," he called out to her, approaching slowly, like a giant cat. "Tell me, Eliza, truly, that you wanted this for yourself?"

Eliza spat out blood. "Look at you. Dragging around your victims like trophies. You're no better than the dark speedster."

"I. Am. Better." He rushed forward and caught hold of her, flinging her the other direction and watching in slow motion as she hit the windshield of a car. Lightning again crackled down his arms. A trapped part of him screamed in the back of his brain and went unheeded. He approached Eliza fast this time, coming up short just as she was picking herself off of the pavement.

Now there was fear in her eyes, and the beast at the forefront of Barry's mind roared in approval.

"Please," she said. "Stop. I surrender."

She held out a hand. Somewhere behind Barry, someone snapped a camera. The sound was impossibly crisp, filtered through the web of perception the V9 had created for him. He jerked toward the sound and wrested away the camera. An expensive one. One that news crews might have. It shattered on the ground into a hundred pieces. The civilian who'd been holding it careened backward onto the sidewalk at the force. Another cried for help, but the cry fell on deaf ears.

Barry rushed Eliza and wrenched her away again. A boom echoed in the wake of his departure, and broken glass rained down in the streets of the city.

* * *

 **Guys you don't know how much I agonized over where to place the cliffhanger-there were so many opportune moments. Think things can't get worse? Because THEY CAN. But you'll have to wait until Wedesday.**

 **Thanks for reading!**

 **Till next time,**

 **Penn**


	4. Chapter 4

**I'm really sorry about this after the finale. Lord, I am crushed. But the angst must continue...at all costs.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

This time Barry didn't stop until they'd reached the city limits, a cliff near the water that was covered in measly, near-dead grass. He threw Eliza down and she rolled, stopping just short of the edge.

"What have you done to me?" shouted some combination of the two Barrys, both fighting for dominance, eyes now hot with some combination of lightning and tears. Every emotion, it seemed, now enveloped him, deafening him, muffling all thought; he could no longer tell if the V9 was working in his bloodstream or not, if this was a high or withdrawal.

"Please," Eliza begged again, nursing an elbow but not daring to rise from the ground. Barry could see whitecaps in the distance, on the water he'd once torn across. "I'm sorry."

"You're not sorry."

"You're not well."

 _She created us_ , came the familiar voice. _She created me. Now you it's your responsibility to end this._

"Just let me go, and I'll try to help you get better," Eliza continued. "We can both…we can help each other be better."

"Funny," Barry said. "This little voice in my head is telling me to kill you. Is that what it told you, that night? To kill me?"

Desperation, icy-cold, rushed through him.

"You're supposed to help people," Eliza said.

"How am I supposed to do that, now that I've tasted what real power is?" Barry said, voice cracking. "How am I supposed to do that when—when I'm so slow—when I know that I'm weak and that I can be so fast and so strong, so _strong_ —"

" _This_ is making you weak! Listen to yourself, please!"

 _Do it, get rid of her._

He looked at her, looked at her horrified, bloody face, tried frenziedly to pinpoint the familiar surge of rage—

He found terror.

In that miniscule second of control, he forced himself to flee, forced himself back to the only place he knew might help. He was running on empty, crashing, his body unwilling to retain its integrity, so his entrance to the lab was clumsy. He went straight for the medical bay where Caitlin and Cisco had manufactured the V9. Caitlin had formulas and equipment and everything he might have needed, but he was too clumsy.

He would never be able to make the V9 in time.

Frustrated, quaking, he slammed a rack of test tubes to the ground. They shattered at his feet. He ripped the mask from his head, feeling constricted, watching as a shower of sweat from his hair splattered the work station. The sound of shattering, too, pierced his eardrums and ignited a pain so fierce he thought he must be bleeding from the inside out.

That was when he heard them.

 _No_ , thought the slow Barry Allen. The rational one. _Not them. Get away from them._

 _No_ , answered the powerful Barry Allen, who at once knew exactly what he needed to do.

Deliberately, he turned around to face them—Caitlin and Cisco.

"You're here late," Caitlin began, crossing her arms. "Any particular reason?"

 _They know. They know everything._

Barry gave the tiniest shake of the head, to try and dispel the warring voices in his mind, to no avail. "I need something."

"Where's Eliza?" Cisco asked. He had something in his hand, partially hidden behind his back. Barry tried to focus on it, but found his vision was blurry.

 _Don't tell them._

"I need a favor."

 _You need a favor? That's the best you could come up with?_

"Shut up."

"Barry?" Caitlin took a slow, cautious step forward.

 _Talking to yourself. Not good, Flash._

"You need to make more V9." Barry held his ground, beginning to vibrate. "You two are the only ones who know how, yes?"

In the middle of the floor, Caitlin halted.

"Barry—"

"I need it _now_ ," he said. He could feel his voice drop, though he suddenly felt detached, like he was witnessing a hallucination. He struggled to regain his grip, but it slipped away from him, and he dipped below the surface of white-hot necessity. "Make it now."

"Where's Eliza?" Cisco repeated, more firmly this time.

 _They're not going to agree. You know what you have to do._

When he didn't respond, Caitlin's lips grew thin. Cisco now was the one to step forward, coming into line with her and then stepping slightly in front of her, as if he too knew what was going on in Barry's head.

"It's already all over the news, you know. All over social media. The Flash going rogue. Footage of you beating Eliza to a pulp in the middle of the street. A powerless Eliza who is begging you to show mercy."

"She doesn't deserve mercy after what she did." The words were out of Barry's mouth before he could stop them. In fact, he couldn't stop anything. Couldn't stop the vibrating that was so intense now it snapped electricity off of his skin. Couldn't stop the influx of ire building beneath that dynamic exterior. "V9. Now."

"I'm so sorry," Caitlin said. "I'm sorry that we didn't see what was happening to you sooner. You're not in your right mind. And if you think that we're going to enable this, that we're going to make more V9 for you…"

Barry narrowed his eyes. "Then what?"

Caitlin's lip twitched, her face hardening in determination. "Then you're a damn fool."

The snap within Barry might as well have been audible. His ears filled with a rushing sound, his lungs seized with uncontrollable distress. He wasn't fast _enough_ , but he was still fast. His hands were wrapped in the material of her shirt, knuckles white. They were yanking her up, throwing her backward.

The clang of her hitting a metal table was too loud. It broke through the haze for an instant. He turned to her, watched her groan from a heap on the floor, prepared himself to run at her—to help or to continue his attack, he couldn't be sure—

Then a familiar whirr sounded behind him, a high-pitched whine.

"Stop right there."

Barry turned slowly back around to face Cisco. The device he had been hiding behind his back now stared Barry in the face.

"A cold gun?" Barry sneered. "You brought out a _cold gun_?"

"Take a step back right now," Cisco said. Some distant part of Barry recognized this look on Cisco's face: the same dangerous look he'd had when he'd leveled the fake cold gun at Leonard Snart, the same terrified yet determined look he'd had leveling the tranq gun at Zoom. "I will shoot you."

"I believe that you'll pull the trigger," Barry said. "What I don't believe is that you'll hit me."

Cisco didn't flinch. "One more chance. Come back to us, Barry."

The silenced, slow Barry started to scream. His muscles vibrated faster.

"No, _I'm_ giving _you_ one more chance. The V9. _Now_."

It was too easy. He saw Cisco's finger tighten around the trigger, saw the gathering blue of cold at the barrel of the gun. The blast of ice came at him and he dodged. A cold, feral laugh burst out of him, but in his moment of delirium, Cisco fired again. This time the stream grazed his arm, setting him alight with zinging pain. The sensation pulled him back to focus, and now he was alight, a body of electricity, his blood so hot it could scald.

He zipped forward, too fast for mere humans, and the cold gun was out of Cisco's hands and clattering across the cortex in a second. The engineer made a move as if to duck away, but Barry was on him in a second, the beast awakened—one hand went to the man's jacket, rushing him back and pinning him against a wall.

The man no longer had a name; he was a stranger, an obstacle, an unwilling adversary in Barry's plan. He didn't understand, this stranger, how fiercely the desperation burned in Barry's throat, how strongly the fact pounded in his head that there were no longer limits. Barry would make him understand, make him understand that this was serious, that this was far past a silly game, that he was willing to do _anything_ —

The face dematerialized and rematerialized as Zoom, the one that couldn't be beaten, not without extra speed, the one he _needed_ speed for. A monster with a thousand faces, haunting him around every corner, in every dream: the same monster with the voice that snapped at Barry's heels like a whip.

 _He doesn't understand how much you need this. Make him understand._

"Barry Allen, _stop_!"

The shrillness of the cry behind him, and perhaps the use of his full name, gave him pause. The red clouding his vision dissipated slightly, and along with it the image of Zoom. Unfocused, he took in the face of the man in front of him, a face dripping with acidic terror. Eyes wide.

"Please, Barry."

Cisco Ramon.

More red unclouded, and Barry realized, with a _whoosh_ in the pit of his stomach, that his free hand, positioned inches above Cisco's chest, was vibrating fast enough to blur. Fast enough to kill.

The world and all of its pieces came crashing back at once. The horror of realization banished the voice that had taken him over, the one that demanded strength, and in its place was a weakness that shook him to his core. Petrified, he released the hand pinning Cisco to the wall and watched the man slump to the floor. The man no longer looked at him, his eyes glassy with fright and tears.

Caitlin said something else behind him, still on the floor, but he didn't hear. A ringing filled his ears again, but it was different this time. This time he knew it wasn't from the V9, or V9 withdrawal, or anything to do with the artificial speed demon it had created. This time it was from the world collapsing around him, from Barry Allen emerging out of the rubble of an explosion.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. He didn't know if either one of his friends heard the words. As soon as he said them, he took off.

He was running, running through the city, running through the maze of buildings and streets he had once found so familiar. They felt distant, now that he had betrayed their occupants. He needed to put as much space as possible between himself and the city, between himself and Cisco and Caitlin, who had looked at him with betrayal that he knew now he deserved. He ran, fueled by fear and shame and an urgency to escape.

He was only stopped when something heavy and metal latched itself around his leg. He lurched, his leg held back by whatever now encircled it, and he hit the pavement hard. The speed was siphoned out in a second, as was everything else, leaving only dark.

* * *

 **Continue to cry with me. Forever. I swear I didn't purposely time this to coincide with finale. It just happened.**

 **Thanks for reading! Please consider leaving a comment on your way out. Believe it or not, we're almost to the end! We still have some things to sort out first, though.**

 **Till next time,**

 **Penn**


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks for all of your reactions to the last chapter! I was definitely waiting for that one for a long time.**

 **Now, an extra-long chapter today, and one more after that!**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

Barry had been staring at a cold gray expanse for minutes before he realized that he was awake. When the awareness did hit him, he sat up slowly, stiffly. Everything, even the dull pain that had sprouted in his body, still seemed eerily detached.

The gray walls of the room he was in matched the gray floor. Gray cement floor. Gray cement walls. Cold. Though not cold enough to produce the level of shivers he now experienced.

Even though the place felt awfully foreboding, something out of his nightmares of General Eiling or Zoom's lair, he couldn't quite bring himself to be scared. Still, he dazedly watched a fly circle the one yellow light in the ceiling and wondered who it was who had taken him and when it would be his time to die. There would be no rescue attempt, he was sure. Not after what had happened in the cortex.

However, when the heavy lock clicked and the door squealed open, the face that appeared wasn't menacing, or even angry. It was Joe. And he looked more exhausted than he had in years.

"You're awake, good." Joe stepped into the room and shut the door behind him but didn't make a move closer. "How do you feel?"

Barry swallowed thickly. "Where am I?"

"A temporary metahuman detainment cell at Iron Heights." Joe never had been one to linger on unneeded questions. "As soon as you appeared in the streets with Eliza, Cisco started feeding me your tracking info. I was lucky enough to catch you with the Boot as you left STAR."

Barry flinched, tried to pretend it was because of the fresh pain in his leg.

"Right, probably don't want to be reminded of the name _Cisco_ now," Joe said, with the air of someone who was absolutely going to remind him.

"How is he?"

"About as well as you'd expect." Which answered precisely nothing. "You screwed up big time, son."

"I know."

"Good." Joe's gaze lingered on him—Barry could feel it, even though he'd averted his eyes long ago. "Listen, I know it's not entirely your fault, so I've convinced the DA to let you off the hook this time. Told her you were…possessed. You're lucky it was me who got you."

"You should keep me here."

"Maybe," Joe said. "But I also think the best place for you to heal is with friends." _What friends?_ "Besides, that mask won't stay on long in Iron Heights." He gestured at Barry's costume, which was still drawn up over his eyes. "Like I said, lucky it was me. Anyway, Caitlin's here. She'll drive you back to STAR."

Barry's throat grew so thick he could hardly suck in breath. But he nodded. Silence. Joe let out a heavy breath that could have been a sigh, then exited the room.

Another minute passed before the door opened again, this time quieter. The footsteps into the room were also gentler, more hesitant. They paused in the doorway, perhaps waiting for him to lift his head. He didn't, so they came closer.

"I'm just going to give you a quick look-over and then we can go, okay?"

He didn't respond. Caitlin waited. Then reached for him.

"I treated your leg when Joe brought you in—fractured tibia from the Boot, and the speed you were going—seems like it's healing nicely." Her hand ghosted over his forehead, urging his face up, but he kept his eyes down. "Also mild abrasions on your face from hitting the concrete, though those should heal quickly as well. A concussion, though nothing to worry about."

Medical talk. Her default. That fact alone clued Barry into the fact that she was still shaken, still lacking the personal confidence beneath that hardened exterior.

"Look into the light."

She had produced a pen light, which she now shone into his eyes, forcing him to at last look up. She checked his pupils thoroughly before clicking it off. In the space that followed, they finally made eye contact, but no words could broach the space. He noticed, guiltily, that she had a large bruise and a butterfly bandage on her forehead from when he'd thrown her backward into the table.

Finally he looked away.

"I'm going to drive you back, alright? I don't think you should be running about on that leg just yet."

Wordlessly he allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. Now that he was standing, the world felt a bit more solid, and the jolts in his left leg were more noticeable. Caitlin kept one hand on his arm, perhaps as support, or perhaps to keep him from running away again. Either way, he was glad for it.

Together they limped out to the parking lot. Caitlin didn't even attempt small talk, taking cues from his wordlessness, though she did interject a few mild comments about the weather when Barry became too fixated on the stares leveled at him by the guards at the entrance to the prison.

While he couldn't necessarily call the car ride chilly, it certainly didn't alleviate his uneasiness. When they pulled into the STAR parking lot and Caitlin helped him limp to the door, Barry finally broke the silence that had permeated the space between them for fifteen minutes.

"Are you okay?"

"Don't worry about me," Caitlin said.

"I am."

In response, Caitlin squeezed his arm.

The building felt stagnant, like it had been thrown in aspic since Barry's rampage the previous night. Their footsteps sounded muffled, and the hallway still smelled vaguely of heat.

When they rounded the corner, Barry froze. At the computer bank stood Cisco, who looked up suddenly at the noise. He and Barry stared at one another across the expanse, statuesque. Caitlin released Barry's arm.

"I'll be in the medical bay," she said loudly, so both Barry and Cisco could hear. "I'm going to prep some lines to get you re-hydrated."

Barry murmured his acknowledgement, and Caitlin scurried away. Cisco kept staring.

Barry swallowed. He was suddenly very aware of a twitching muscle in his leg, the moistness on his palms beneath his gloves. His Flash suit was sticky, constricting. Self-consciously, he reached up and finally removed his mask. Cisco looked away.

"I…I don't know what to say." Barry leaned to the side to ease up on the pressure on his leg. "I'm not sure an apology is good enough."

"Mm." Cisco, gaze still turned down, began shuffling through papers.

"What do you need?" Barry tried again, desperate. "I can bring you pizza from Keystone, or…or those churros you like? Alcohol? Maybe that's better?"

Cisco tucked the new stack of paper close to his chest. "It's not about what I need, is it? It's about what you _need_. What you _need_ so desperately you'll do anything to get it. Right?"

On that, he turned on his heel and walked stiffly from the room. The move was like a slap to the face.

In Cisco's place, Wells stepped through the doorway with an expression on his face that told Barry he had heard everything.

"Welcome back, Mr. Allen. Seems you've had quite the night."

"I don't need to hear this," Barry said, limping to a chair and sinking heavily into it.

"No, I think you do." Wells strode forward and took Cisco's place at the computer bank. "I don't think you've ever needed to hear anything more."

"I know I screwed up."

"Good. What did I tell you? What did I _warn_ you specifically against?"

Barry leaned forward, put his head in his hands. As much as he felt the instinct to lash back, to defend himself as he usually did against Wells' remarks, he couldn't. Because Wells was right. He deserved every word of it.

"What do I do now?" Barry said. "How do I possibly make this right?"

"I'm not sure you get to ask that." Wells' lips pressed together in a thin line. "Ramon is going to need time to heal. I know you think you're better than _time_ , than _slowness_ , but I guess you're just going to have to suck it up this round."

Barry said nothing, just pressed the heel of his hand harder to his forehead. Wells' footsteps echoed out of earshot. A moment later, they were replaced by Caitlin's.

"Are you alright?"

"Does it matter, honestly?" Barry said, trying desperately to stave off the headache that had flared behind his eyelids. He took a breath. "Did you hear all of that?"

"Mm." Something knocked against his arm, and he looked up blearily to find Caitlin offering him a glass of water. He accepted it gratefully but realized as he took the glass how badly his hands were shaking. "I won't lie, this isn't going to be easy. You're going to need to stay here for a bit. So we can keep an eye on you." Then she added quickly: "And help you."

"Good," said Barry. He chugged his water and grimaced. "But there's one place I need to go first."

* * *

Caitlin stopped the van in the alley behind Jitters. The same alley they'd been in when General Eiling had tried to kidnap Ronnie. When Caitlin and Cisco had extracted Barry from danger while metal spikes were embedded in his chest.

That past seemed so far away. They were separate people. The Barry of then had been helped so easily by Caitlin and Cisco; now he wasn't sure his friends would be so ready to extend a hand. In a way, he was again lying in the cold of that alley with spikes in his chest, though this time it was not Eiling who put them there, but himself.

"Are you sure about this?" Caitlin asked as he extracted himself from the passenger seat and opened the door.

"It's something I need to do," said Barry. "I'll be back in a second." He paused. "Not…literally. But soon. Soon."

Caitlin gave him one more skeptical look, but his mind was made up. He slammed the car door shut behind him and turned his back on it. Then he took a long, deep breath, adjusted his mask, and started running.

The small burst of speed sent a chill down his spine, reawakening the part of him that had taken over the day before, but the run was deliberately short enough that he didn't have time to dwell on it. Central City Picture News was just a few blocks down from Jitters—close enough for him to _almost_ observe his self-imposed rule of No Speed, but just far enough that he could make a Flash-like entrance.

This time he flashed back to his first disastrous confrontation with Zoom, which had found him dangling here at the front of the news station, as good as dead. The gasps now were similar, as were the rustlings of dozens of people reaching for phones, video cameras. He planted himself at the front, exactly where Zoom had stood a month ago, and blinked into those cameras again.

"I have something I would like to say."

Out of the crowd, Iris stepped forward, her face questioning in a way that none of the others were. He so desperately wanted to ignore her, but he used her instead as an anchor point. The glare of the camera lenses around her, the blinking red lights, told him that all eyes were focused on him.

"To the people of Central City," he began, "I would like to issue a sincere…apology."

Even as he swallowed it, the word tasted bitter. But also not strong enough. Not right.

"The altercation between myself and the metahuman known as Trajectory is one I deeply regret, and I am sorry to everyone who was present at the scene."

He picked his words carefully, not wanting to stumble or come off insincere.

"Listen," he tried again, taking a step forward. The reporter closest to him stepped back, pupils blown with fear. Barry's blood ran cold. "You have every right to be afraid of me. What happened out there, it was…unforgivable."

A reporter near the back raised a hand hesitantly. "Mr…Flash, sir. Was this Trajectory an evil metahuman?"

"No, I…" Barry's fingers twitched. "I don't think that's the right question. We've been divided so much on good and evil metahumans, when those distinctions simply aren't the case. Trajectory did some awful things, including threaten the lives of people close to me. But yesterday, when I confronted her, she was on her way to being reformed."

"So why did you attack her?"

This voice, marginally more emboldened, sounded from a place near Iris. Despite the proximity, Barry could no longer bring himself to look at her.

"I was acting irrationally. I never should have hurt her, or endangered the civilians at the scene."

"Were you mind-controlled?"

Barry thought back to Bivolo, what it had felt like to be whammied, what it had felt like to watch the news reports the next day. This was, undoubtedly, worse.

"No," he said quietly. "Just driven by a lot of fear, and a lot of anger. Like I said, we can't make those distinctions so easily. I am ashamed of the actions I took yesterday, but they were my own. So, to the people of Central City, I'm sorry. I am going to try to be better. I _will_ be better. Because you don't deserve anything less."

The twitching in his fingers was becoming too persistent to bear, so he flashed away before any other questions could be lobbed his way.

Once back in the STAR van, he let out a huge sigh and pressed himself back into the leather. In the driver's seat, Caitlin had the news pulled up on her phone. She shut it off at his arrival and put the phone away, giving him a silent nod that told him she had seen everything. And that maybe, _maybe_ , this was an acceptable first step. He buried his restless fingers beneath his legs and tried to focus on the hum of the car engine.

"Hey, Barry," Caitlin said as they stepped out of the van at STAR labs. "Hold on. I want to do some more tests, okay? We'll figure out some way to help you through these withdrawals."

So she'd noticed. He tucked his now-vibrating hands behind his back and nodded. Sweat collected at the nape of his neck. "Fine. I'll be inside."

The pounding of his heart, the way it stuttered unnaturally with the trembling in his limbs, terrified him. As did the deep, deep hunger in the pit of his stomach that had been slowly returning over the past several minutes. That, more than anything, was what compelled him to run into the heart of STAR, into the basement. Because even though he'd said his piece at Picture News, even though he was still horrified at the events of the previous day, it was returning—that craving.

So, just as he had days prior, what felt like lifetimes ago, he ran until he hit the back of a pipeline cell. Closed the door behind him. Waited with knees drawn up to his chest, vibrating out of his skin.

The headache had begun in earnest by the time Caitlin made it down to the pipeline. She crossed her arms and regarded him from outside the cell.

"Barry, you scared me."

"Sorry," he said, not insincerely, but fighting back such pounding pain in his head that his voice came off a bit monotone. "I wasn't sure I could make it back before I lost control."

"You have control," Caitlin said. "You're strong. I know you won't let anything like yesterday happen again."

"You _don't_ know that," Barry responded, "and if you think you do, you're only putting yourself in danger. You need to keep me in here, okay? Until the drug is completely gone."

Caitlin's forehead creased. "What is this about, Barry? Why don't you want our help?"

"Because Wells warned me about this," Barry said. "Wells _told_ me that the V9 was dangerous, and that I wouldn't be able to handle it. He also told me I was better than the drug, and, well…looks like I proved him wrong."

"It doesn't mean you can't become better." Caitlin crouched down at the glass. "I've been thinking about options, like I said. How to make this easier."

"I don't want anything," Barry said. "Nothing, please. Let me ride this out myself."

A forceful puff of air burst from Caitlin's nose. She shifted, leaned back in her crouch. Adjusted her slacks. "You're right. Maybe this isn't supposed to be easy."

Barry slicked off his mask, ran his hand through his hair. "I just wish none of this had happened. If Eliza hadn't hit me with that first shot…"

"Eliza may have hit you," Caitlin said, just a touch unsympathetically, "but what came after was all you."

Another tremor ran through Barry's body. "You don't think I know that?"

Caitlin remained crouched a few more seconds, contemplating, chewing a lip. Then, looking more tired than she had in a long time, she stood. "If you insist on doing this without any assistance, then I'm not going to get in the way of that. I'll be back down in a few hours with some food, maybe a book. I can read to you. Would you like that?"

Barry tried a weak smile. "Caitlin, you're…you're amazing,"

As Caitlin turned to leave, she returned the smile, tiny, exhausted, a bit sad. "You think I don't know that?" she echoed lightly. Then, with an almost-inaudible sigh, she left him alone in the dimness.

* * *

 **There's a lot of wrap-up for events like these. Stay tuned for one more chapter, where everything will be resolved...or will it?**

 **Because of I am moving across the country this Wednesday, the last chapter may even be coming a bit early, on Tuesday! So keep an eye out, and, as always, thanks for reading-and I would love to hear your thoughts.**

 **Till next time,**

 **Penn**


	6. Chapter 6

**Here we are, finally at the last chapter of "Aspic of the Universe." I'll save the sappy comments for the end, but, for now, thank you for coming along this far.**

 **Enjoy!**

* * *

At first, it wasn't so bad. The shivering, he could handle. If he pressed himself into a tight ball, muscles taut, he could even ignore the headache for a while.

After what felt like hours, but what was likely only one, Barry sincerely wanted to die.

It wasn't just the shaking, or the headache. Not even the nausea, the cold sweat, the dizziness. It was the sensation that something was nesting under his skin, in between tendons and bones, that was fighting to claw out. Pain, pain throughout his entire body, but an unusual kind of pain. The kind that festered and manifested in a whisper:

 _Let me out. You know you want to—this isn't the best version of you. Of us. Let me out._

At some indeterminate point in time, Caitlin brought him water, food, but thankfully honored his desire to keep the pipeline cell shut tight. He didn't see her come or go; his head was buried in the darkness of his knees in an attempt to stave off the worst. He heard her leave though, heard the too-loud clacks of heels on metal. Perhaps she was afraid to stay too long. He wouldn't blame her. In fact, he expected it.

 _Let me out, Flash. Let us be fast. You can't do anything for anyone locked up in this cell. You think this will solve your problems?_

"It will get rid of you," Barry mumbled into the scuffed leather of his knees.

 _You don't want to get rid of me. You want to be fast. You want to stop Zoom from hurting anyone again._

Barry scrunched up his face, breathed in shallow gulps of stale air.

 _Don't fight it._

"Go away," he said, more firmly.

"Ouch. Can't say wasn't expecting a tough crowd, but I didn't know you wanted me gone that much."

Barry jerked his head up and the world outside of the cell swam into focus. Cisco stood a few feet from the glass, hands shoved into his pockets. How long he had been there was impossible to say, but from the looks of it he was more than a little disturbed by what he was seeing.

"I wasn't talking to you," Barry croaked.

"Oh, that makes me feel loads better," Cisco said. "'Hey, I wasn't talking to you, I was just talking to the voices in my head.'"

It was true, but Barry figured it was wise to drop the subject. The words _I'm sorry_ still sprang to his tongue, but Cisco spoke again before he could form them.

"Caitlin told me you'd locked yourself in here," Cisco said. "She said you were already making progress." A pause. "Is it true?"

"I don't know, Cisco," Barry said tiredly. "Does this look like progress?"

Cisco considered. Looked him up and down, catalogued the sweat and the vibrations. Shrugged. Removed his hands from his pockets. Crossed his arms.

"What made you do it?" he said, instead of answering. His voice had gone very quiet. "You can tell me that, at least?"

Barry's initial response was to ask _Do what?_ because, in truth, he had done so much damage in the past few days he wasn't even sure where to begin. He closed his eyes against a swell of dizziness, the sensation of falling, before speaking.

"Eliza and Trajectory were two separate beings," Barry began slowly. "The V9 kind of…divided them. It was almost the same with me. There was me and then there was…a better me. A faster me."

"Jekyll and Hyde."

"Sure," Barry said, eager to agree with Cisco. "After Zoom, after he proved to me time and time again that he could beat me, I've been stuck in this place where I know I'm not fast enough. The V9 gave me that. It gave me the ability to go fast enough to save my friends. When you're already nursing that desire, it doesn't take a huge catalyst to bring it to the surface."

"Yeah, with one key problem," Cisco said coldly. "Unless killing me is somehow part of your grand plan to save me."

"That other voice, the one that needed to be better—it took control," Barry explained. "It was just so desperate, and so angry, and so afraid."

Cisco shifted.

"See, the thing is, Barry," he said, "you're talking about this like it's a different entity, when you said it yourself: this V9 divides a person. That other voice, the _better Barry_ , that was still you."

"I know." Heat pooled behind Barry's eyes. "I know that. And I'm so, so sorry."

Instead of looking at him further, Cisco looked over at the control panels for the cell door. "You know, under normal circumstances I would trust you enough to open this door and make you come up to the medical bay."

The hollowness of the unspoken dug a chunk out of Barry's stomach. "Do you trust me?"

Cisco's lips tightened. "No."

With a quiet sigh, Barry leaned back against the wall. "Good."

Without another word, Cisco turned his back and strode out.

* * *

Time passed indeterminately, an inconsistent construct. When Barry closed his eyes, he was assaulted by nightmares, mostly featuring Zoom, but some more horrible ones involving Cisco, Caitlin, and Iris staring sightlessly upward with holes in their chests. The dead person in question was always a surprise in these dreams, but the one thing that never changed was the fact that Barry himself was the culprit.

Eventually the voice at the back of his mind faded, removing significant pressure in his skull, and he stopped vibrating so violently. Caitlin, Iris, or Joe occasionally came down with food, which he couldn't keep down. An overwhelming part of him wished that the security cameras for the cell had been turned off, but when Caitlin arrived at his door to clean him up minutes after he vomited up his lunch, his suspicions were confirmed.

Caitlin also kept good on her promise to read to him, sitting on the other side of the glass and reading a chapter out of _Game of Thrones,_ or _Harry Potter_ , or, if he was particularly unlucky, one of the science books she was currently invested in. Though their talk was minimal, the sentiment was still appreciated.

"Don't tell me you don't read these kinds of books on your own," Caitlin said one time of the science books. "You're a scientist."

"I may read them, but I _speed-read_ them. They're not the kind of books you savor," he responded.

"Section 4.2," Caitlin continued loudly, and Barry groaned dramatically. Caitlin smiled just a smidgeon at the gesture. Humor, they'd both found, was one of the most helpful strategies they could come up with to speed up recovery.

In between spells of company, Barry dozed when he could, or else stared idly at blank spots in the floor or the wall. Once upon a time the quiet and the nothingness might have driven him crazy, but now the white noise almost acted as a bleaching agent on the thoughts at the back of his brain. Constant pain gave way to weakness, anger dissolved into sadness—but all of that, he reasoned, he could deal with. In time.

Some time later, after three chapters of _Game of Thrones,_ five chapters of _Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban_ , and two chapters of Caitlin's science book, Barry heard soft, hesitant footsteps at the entrance to the pipeline. He kept his eyes closed against a curl of nausea that had begun that morning but called out, "I really hope it's _Harry Potter_ this time."

When there was no response, just footsteps, Barry opened his eyes and was shocked to find not Caitlin, but Cisco, walking toward him.

"Sorry to disappoint," Cisco said. He shuffled forward, and Barry readjusted himself. "I guess I forgot to take your book order."

"It's fine," Barry insisted. "I just thought you were Caitlin."

"Again, sorry for the disappointment."

"Cisco." For the first time in days, Barry allowed for some firmness in his voice. "Can we talk about this?"

"I don't think there is much to talk about," Cisco said. He visibly swallowed. "I understand that you weren't in your right mind. I'm sorry, even, that you felt like you had to go to such drastic lengths to compensate for something you already have."

He chewed on silence. For once, Barry didn't try to interject.

"But," he continued, "it's still pretty damn terrifying watching your best friend in the world try to kill you."

"I'm so sorry," Barry said, and he knew he wouldn't stop repeating the words on a loop for weeks to come. "I don't expect you to forgive me. I messed up."

"Big time," Cisco said, but at this his shoulders relaxed just a fraction. "And I do believe that you're sorry. That's how I know you're Barry again."

The space between them hung on tenterhooks—for what it was worth, it might have been miles long. A vacuum of sound. An aspic of broken glass, suspended. Barry again felt a pang of hurt deep in his stomach, the agony of a hole that could not be stitched up. He saw it on Cisco's face, too: layers and layers of scar tissue that smoldered instead of dutifully going numb.

After a slight pause, Cisco walked forward a few more steps. "Caitlin says you're doing better."

"Yeah, but don't let me out," Barry said, for the first time panicking, raising his hand to stop Cisco. Cisco, however, barked out a laugh.

"Oh, trust me, that's the last item on my list of things I want to do. Right after 'marathon the _Transformers_ movies.'" When Barry shot him a puzzled look, he pulled something out from behind his back. "It's not _Harry Potter_ , but it should at least pass the time alright."

Barry squinted at the title and, all at once, felt a single stitch pass through that hole in his gut. _Wrath of Khan._

"I mean," Cisco said, with the barest hint of a smile, "if it's all the same to you."

Ten minutes later he'd gotten the projector set up—ironically, the same projector he'd used when organizing his infamous rogue movie nights—and clicked on the movie. Twenty minutes later Barry quietly did his first Shatner impression, which elicited an even tinier, barely-suppressed smirk from Cisco.

Thirty minutes later Caitlin walked into the pipeline and found them intently watching the film as they did every other month. It was notably more subdued than usual, neither one even attempting the standard quips and outrageous comments that permeated their viewings. But still silently watching, shoulder to shoulder on opposite sides of the glass.

That was how she found them, and that was how she joined them, taking her place on the floor beside Cisco and blessedly pretending not to see the way Barry sagged with unexplainable emotion when she did.

The pipeline whirred around them as they huddled there, willing time and space to reorient themselves. Barry pressed his forehead against the cool glass of his cell. He chanced a glance over at his friends, watched the light from the projector flickering on their faces.

Second by second, beat by beat, the world began its slow turn back to normal speed.

* * *

 **That's it, folks!**

 **Like I said, thank you so much for joining me on this wild ride. I feel like it's over so quickly, but I have really appreciated all of your feedback. I was incredibly nervous to tackle this kind of story because it was new to me both stylistically and thematically-but the comments I've gotten back have been outstanding! This really isn't the same without all of you, so thank you, _thank you_ , for taking the time to read and respond to my work (the fact that you do is still amazing to me!).**

 **Another longfic(ish) is in the works now, but it may be a while before that one is completed and ready to post. Until then, hopefully some one-shots and the like, or come pass the hiatus time with me over on tumblr at pennflinn.**

 **Thanks again. Truly.**

 **Till next time,**

 **Penn**


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